Audio Science Review = "The better the measurement, the better the sound" philosophy

@prof maybe it is time for you and the rest of the flying monkeys to fly back to Amir's dark castle. 

 

I just watched Oz the Great and Powerful in 3D on my 120 inch screen in 7.2.6 Dolby Atmos, thumbs up.

 

Question for the ASR guys. Referring to the SINAD chart, it is labeled "Excellent, Good/Very good, Fair, and Poor".  That's in reference to its measured performance but still perhaps a value judgement but if you are measuring noise and distortion with some made up formula. Would not it be more valuable if the groups were labeled; "Audible, Perhaps Audible, and Not Audible"? 

@prof

"...that comes across as a dogmatic statement "You Can’t Change Our Minds!" Do you really want to seem that inflexible? Isn’t being open minded a two way street? It often seems that people using a purely subjective ("Golden Ear") paradigm will castigate the "objectivist" for not being open to their claims, but will remain stubbornly opposed to being open to the objectivist side."

 

That’s just it, some people are more than ready to accept opinions ahead of scientific evidence. To them it doesn’t seem to matter whose subjective opinion it is, or whether there are even conflicting subjective opinions, only the ones that they want to read or hear.

 

You could call it an entirely subjective confirmation bias.

 

This subjectivist v objectivist debate is one of the oldest in audio but when did it all begin?

 

Perhaps someone with a good knowledge of audio journalism could help here? Was it something to do with Gordon J Holt and Harry Pearson, the 2 big names of US journalism that I’ve heard of?

 

I’ve read that in the early days UK reviews were mainly focused around measurements. At some point, like much else, the American influence crossed the Atlantic and the UK magazines quicky followed suit in promoting increasingly subjective reviews.

A situation that has persisted for decades and is only now being challenged by sites such as ASR, Erin’s Music Corner, Archimago’s Musings, Audioholics etc.

The likes of Ethan Winter and late great Peter Aczel made a concerted effort to restore the balance back towards an objective approach but their efforts met with considerable resistance, derision and even personal attacks.

 

Doesn’t this sound a little familiar now?

 

Why is this the case?
Dare I suggest it’s a simple matter of vested financial interests?

 

The subjectivists approach actively encourages consumers to spend, spend, spend ever increasingly large amounts of money on equipment and cabling.

Most of them usually include an ad hoc performance league masquerading as a buyer’s guide that always correlates with increasing prices.

Spend, spend, spend!

This buyers is regularly updated with ’new and better’ products as they become available for purchase and quite callously renders yesteryear’s highly rated products as ’old news’.

Everyone from the manufacturers, the dealers, and the journalists seems to be happy with this state of affairs. Few dare to challenge this unwritten dictat.

 

Why bite the hand that feeds you?

 

Everyone, that is, apart from a growing number of consumers who are beginning to ask a few questions and demand a little more proof of these claims.

And this is where the main issue seems to lie.

An increasing demand for evidence based reviews and recommendations will inevitably threaten the livelihood of some of those with vested financial interests.

Some will no doubt adapt and adopt a more science based approach but others will be prepared to fight to the death rather than renounce their views.

Especially when it means a loss of earnings and income.

History has many examples of folks willing to die for their beliefs, usually political or religious, rather than renounce them. However, the pursuit of money is another powerful driving force that also seems to be incredibly difficult to renounce.

Such are the ways of mankind.

@cd318 What have I repeated infinitum. I at least want manufacturers to post test measurements of their own rather than puffery or minimal specifications. Furthermore, high end cable and nearly all tweak manufacturers have no specs. That’s why I opened another forum.

Another thing, since when is older, used equipment to be dismissed in place of new equipment? For those who want great sound without breaking the bank, I strongly suggest good to high quality used equipment instead. This goes for amps, pre-amps, phono stages, SUTs, speakers and cabling. Why pay top dollar (or even bottom dollar) when there are ample alternatives. I made this point yesterday. No comments about it.

@prof You’re doing it again, twisting my words. Most music listeners (many friends who perform music as well) don’t care about measurements or audiophile equipment. If they like what they hear they will buy it. (Often, if they like what they see, buttons or nice finish, they may prefer that). You can’t change our minds refers to people hearing differences. We are not deluding ourselves although many audiophiles do have problems hearing and/or do not have sufficiently trained to hear or understand what differences there are to be heard. Dramatic differences can be heard by (nearly) everyone. Subtle differences are of course more difficult for most people. My golden ear friends are better than I am in ascertaining subtle differences but after 50+ years of listening to so many systems and making recordings, I am quite good at detecting and comprehending differences.  Dramatic differences are like hearing Disney Hall versus Dorothy Chandler or Wilson versus Magnapan speakers.  How about Bose versus Magicos?   That's how dramatic a digital cable change can be.  Amir hasn't heard it.  Sad!

@kota1 Loved your link. Great quote-Every scientific genius in history was been subjected to viscous derision by the scientific dogmatists of their generation who were often laughably wrong in retrospect. History is filled with examples and this debate of break-in/burn-in is no different.